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    The Enchanted April
    The Enchanted April
    The Enchanted April
    Ebook284 pages5 hours

    The Enchanted April

    By Elizabeth Von Arnim

    4/5

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    Drawn by a promise of "wisteria and sunshine," four English ladies exchange their damp and dreary surroundings for a month on the Italian Riviera. They're different from each other in age and attitude, but all are bewitched by their rented medieval castle and the natural beauty of the Portofino peninsula. Their holiday not only refreshes their spirits but also reintroduces them to their true natures and reopens their hearts to love and friendship.
    Hilarious and romantic by turns, the novel provides a piquant satire on British society of the 1920s as well as the human foibles of every era. It's also a tale of women coming into their own and finding the courage to be true to themselves and others. This bestselling tale of self-discovery ― recounted with warmth, wit, and charm ― was adapted several times for stage and screen. Not everyone can spend a month in the Italian countryside, but the spell cast by The Enchanted April offers the next best thing.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateFeb 27, 2017
    ISBN9780486820651
    Author

    Elizabeth Von Arnim

    Elizabeth von Arnim was born in Australia in 1866 and her family moved to England when she was young. Katherine Mansfield was her cousin and they exchanged letters and reviewed each other’s work. Von Arnim married twice and lived in Berlin, Poland, America, France and Switzerland, where she built a chalet to entertain her circle of literary friends, which included her lover, H. G. Wells. Von Arnim’s first novel, Elizabeth in Her German Garden, was semiautobiographical and a huge success on publication in 1898. The Enchanted April, published in 1922, is her most widely read novel and has been adapted numerous times for stage and screen. She died of influenza in 1941.

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    Reviews for The Enchanted April

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    • 4/5
      The story of four women who answer an advertisement to spend a month at a castle in Italy. The atmosphere and the influence of one of the women (Mrs Wilkins) on the others bring about changes in each of them.While this was a little slow in places, overall I found it amusing and enjoyable. The four women are well characterized and the initial suspicion felt by Caroline and Mrs Fisher was very well done. The scene where Rose's husband arrives and is introduced to Caroline was fabulous.
    • 4/5
      Charming with gentle humor.
    • 4/5
      The Enchanted April, first published in 1922, is the story of four women who rent a castle in Italy together one April. The women are strangers to each other at the beginning of the novel, but each of them has her own reasons for wanting a holiday. Spending a month at San Salvatore surrounded by sunshine and flowers gives each woman a chance to resolve her problems and try to find happiness.I'm so glad my first experience with Elizabeth von Arnim was a good one. I hadn't expected something so readable and full of gentle humour and wit and yet with so much depth and such a lot of character development. I also loved the setting and the atmosphere. The images of Italy in the spring were beautifully described, with the sun shining and the flowers bursting into bloom. I defy anybody to read this story and not want to immediately book a trip to Italy this April!As the title suggests, The Enchanted April is a lovely, enchanting story! After enjoying this one so much, I'll definitely be reading more of von Arnim's work.
    • 3/5
      I so wanted this short novel to have the charm of the movie! I know. Silly of me, but this 1920's story of four women from London who rent a beautiful Italian villa based on an advertisement in the newspaper hoping to escape their various lives, left me wanting. The women are not particularly likable and the lengthy internal monologues just wore me down. And then the men arrive! Why? Oh well. Guess I'll just have to watch the movie again.
    • 4/5
      This is delightful. Mrs Wilkins, or a dreary February day in London, sees an advert for a castle in Italy for the month of April. And so she strikes up conversation with Mrs Arbuthnot and the two of them plan to escape their humdrum lives for a month. They decide to invite 2 additional ladies, in order to keep the costs down, so place an advert of their own for some ladies to share. Hence the unlikely assortment of women who find themselves arriving at San Salvatore for the month. Each has her reasons for wanting to escape, each of them has some space and quiet in order to re-assess their lives. It's quite brave to just run away. It can be very difficult to change your way of thinking, especially when it is o deeply ingrained. For the selfless do-gooder, it can be hard to be selfish at times. Each of them undergoes an emotional journey while barely moving from a comfortable chair. It remains surprisingly undated, while society has changed, the feelings and relationships between people have changed little. Hence it is still possible to feel for all of them, in their different ways, their hopes, fears, worries and aspirations. Lovely - and I'm looking at Italian holidays...
    • 4/5
      Someone keep me off the internet or I'll be booking tickets to Italy to find San Salvatore before the evening's out... What a funny, clever observation of life this little classic is. Published in 1922, this novel could as easily have been written yesterday. Social graces may change over the years, but the intricacies of human interaction stay the same.Lotty Wilkins finds herself reading an ad for a castle to rent in Italy one day at her London lunch club, and not having done anything spur of the moment or exciting for years decides on a whim to invite a relative stranger sitting nearby - who she's only seen before at church - to join her in renting the castle for the month of April. Somehow she manages to persuade the quiet, good living Rose Arbuthnot to join her on her mad adventure, and to lessen the damage to her rainy day nest egg they place an ad for two other women to join them to share the rent.Thus begins the madcap tale of their month in an Italian castle with a wealthy, churlish widow and a beautiful young socialite who is tired of the world falling at her feet. Funny yet tender, von Arnim so accurately depicts how differently people can feel on the inside to how they appear on the outside, how we can fear those who threaten our own perceptions of ourselves, and how different people can bring out totally polar sides of our characters, making us bloom or cutting the wind out of our sails.The depictions of the two marriages in the story were particularly cleverly observed - for different reasons, both parties in the two marriages were feeling cut off and unloved, yet it only took for one person in the marriage to reach their hand across the chasm and the other happily reached out to grab hold. I thought that was so smartly executed - actions that come so naturally in the good times can seem such big steps to take when the going gets tough, and yet sometimes it only takes a little change to make everything fall into place again.4 stars - a smart and humorous classic that's still very relevant today.
    • 3/5
      This hundred year old classic novel tells the tale of four English women who are looking for an escape from their lives and decide to take a month-long vacation in an Italian castle...with each other. The women are strangers to one another and come from different walks of life. Two are married and part of the escape is to get away from their husbands and clear their heads. Apart from the initial vacation preparations and character introductions, the entire book takes place in the castle that the four women rent out. They don't go on lavish adventures around the countryside. They don't find mysterious romance with locals. They just enjoy their surroundings and learn about themselves. In our fast-paced adrenaline driven 21st century, the concept may sound terribly boring...and if you go in with that expectation, you'll surely be let down. It is slow paced and lacking in adventure, but from an aesthetic and thoughtful point of view this is an elegant and beautiful piece of work well worth reading. (I understand that there is a movie version as well, but I haven't seen it so I don't know how well it compares)The initial chapters of the book introduce us to Lotty Wilkins, the woman who has become dissatisfied with her life in London and the humdrum relationship with her husband. She reads and advertisement for an idyllic month among the wisteria at an Italian castle and she's decided that she absolutely must go. Unfortunately, she can't afford the entire rent on her own and she doesn't want to ask her husband for the money. She approaches an acquaintance (Mrs. Arbuthnot) who Lotty feels may be similarly dissatisfied and convinces her that they should rent the place together. They then decide to advertise for an interview two other women to join them and before long the entire plan is set. As an interesting twist by the author, as Lotty prepares to tell her husband about her vacation plans, he announces that he would like to take her on a trip...to Italy. This sudden invitation catches her off guard and she nearly changes her mind but then remembers all of the reasons she wants this "girl's month out" and announces that she's committed to this trip and she must go.We get to know the other two women very briefly through the interview process and then meet them more vividly upon arrival in Italy. Mrs. Fisher is an elderly aristocrat and Lady Caroline is a young socialite and each initially seems somewhat stereotypical. As the four women interact, Lotty Wilkins strives to turn them all into close friends and to help each of them experience all of the wonderful possibilities she believes this trip will offer them. To Lotty's dismay, both Lady Caroline and Mrs. Fisher seem only to want to be left alone. Lady Caroline (who in her self-reflection is known as "Scrap") is trying to get away from the noise and chaos of life and constant suitors in an effort to be fully introspective and figure out what she wants. Mrs. Fisher wants a certain amount of decorum and respect and really just kind of wants to be alone to indulge in the location. This leaves Lotty to befriend Mrs. Arbuthnot. Within a short time they are on first name basis (Lotty is comfortable much quicker but soon Rose Arbuthnot acquiesces). Lotty takes on a sense of romanticism and love of life that she tries to share with everyone. Little by little she works to wear down the resolve of the other ladies and turn them all into friends.There are a few revelations and plot surprises that come up so I won't go into detail of everything that happens in Italy. In reality, the main plot elements are less important than the character development and the realizations that each woman comes to about her own character and her views on life and those around her. The novel is filled with thoughtful and insightful introspection as well as great interaction between the characters that transitions them from stereotypical archetypes into more fully fleshed out women. The language and structure of the book is poetic and romantic which serves as a nice framework for the kind of character growth we experience. This is a nice classic that's worth reading.***3 out of 5 stars
    • 5/5
      An enchanting story with enchanting characters who are transformed by their holiday in an enchanting locale. Simply loved this book with its well-drawn female characters, magical setting and happy ending for all.
    • 3/5
      I love the idea of this book, but the execution is sadly lacking. I was hoping for a novel combining the beauty of the Italian coastline with some sparkling female wit and a compelling plot, but The Enchanted April is basically about a group of women attempting to philosophise about their lives - treating the reader to some random and dull internal monologues in the process - who then forget about it all when some men turn up and make everything happy and smiley again. There are a few good bits in the book, mainly at the beginning, and at least the arrival of the men drives the plot forward a bit (although why *should* it be the men who propel the story along, feminists cry), but the rest of it does unfortunately show its age.
    • 5/5
      This is a perfectly enchanting book about a month spent in an enchanting place. Lottie Wilkins and Rose Arbuthnot are two rather depressed suburban housewives living in Hampstead. outside of London. Lottie is oppressed by her penny pinching husband, and Rose is totally ignored by her bon vivant writer spouse. One day, while in London doing their shopping, they meet at their women's club and happen to see an ad in The Times for a villa in Tuscany for rent in the month of April. Suddenly, an image of something different appears in both their minds and they decide they must rent it it and get away. To ease the costs they recruit two other women: Mrs. Fisher, a Victorian widow who lives in the ghostly past with her photographs and Lady Caroline Dester, who is trying to get away from all the men pursuing her in London.How this odd assortment of characters lives together and become transformed by the magic of the villa and of April in Italy makes for the most delightful reading. If this book doesn't make you smile, you have no joy in your soul.
    • 4/5
      Lovely, well-written little book with delightful humor and tender depiction of women (and some men) from different backgrounds who end up sharing a month in a medieval castle in Italy. Such different characters with different tastes living together. Unexpected difficulties! How will it all end? Witty, fun, relaxing.
    • 5/5
      Did you ever want to get away from hearth and home? Did you ever want to spend time in quiet solitude in a beautiful scenic setting with someone to cook and care for you? These four ladies did. And they answered an ad in the paper for a villa to be let for the month of April. Each of them not knowing the other, meeting only for the purpose of sharing the cost, they decided to take the villa for the month and believe me, enchantment does ensue. "They screwed up their eyes to be able to look into the blaze of light beyond the shade of their tree. The hot smell from the pine-needles and from the cushions of wild thyme that padded the spaces between the rocks, and sometimes a smell of pure honey from a clump of warm irises up behind them in the sun, puffed across their faces. Very soon Mrs. Wilkins took her shoes and stockings off, and let her feet hang in the water. After watching her a minute Mrs. Arbuthnot did the same. Their happiness was then complete. Their husbands would not have known them. They left off talking. They ceased to mention heaven. They were just cups of acceptance." What beauty there is in this book. Colour, fragrance, light, and sea and the company of three other women of like needs. Seclusion and serenity abound here. Everything one would wish for or need to fill one's spiritual cup to the brim is here.I wanted to be there with them....or alone. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      A charming story about 4 women, strangers to each other, who decide to share an old castle in Italy for the month of April. They are all of different dispositions and seek different things in their vacation. What's common among them though, is a feeling of unhappiness with their lives, and the need to get away from all that is familiar, if only for a month.The meekest and mildest of the 4 appears to go through a complete transformation upon waking up to her first morning in San Salvatore, and her joie de vie and conviction that all will be well because she sees the innermost thoughts and feelings of people, soon brings a thaw to the women. The only character I felt detached from was Lady Caroline and her suggested capitulation to Thomas Briggs seemed totally out of character, especially since she saw him as yet another male besotted with her beauty. Beautifully written and rich with descriptive detail, this is a delightful read.
    • 3/5
      Rose feels neglected by her writer husband, and Lottie is tired of being "good." The remedy they suppose is to get away for a month, using money they have saved, without their husbands. They decide to rent a small castle in Italy, and they recurit two other ladies along to help foot the bill. Lady Caroline, or Scrap, is a young, high society girl and Mrs. Foster is an old widow with a cane. They join Rose & Lottie after replying to an ad requesting traveling/vacation companions. The four are off and soon arrive at the most beautiful setting. They become close, as sisters, and the effect of their surroundings awakens the stale love in Rose & Lottie for their husbands. Soon the husbands are invited to join the vaction. Lottie & Rose rekindle the romance and are reminded of life as newlyweds. Scrap meets the owner of the resort when he comes to check on his guests. He is smitten and she is scared. Love has always done her wrong in the past. At the end of the story they are seen walking through a garden and the converstaion leads one to believe that they will be happy together. A match made in paradise. Mrs. Foster who only had her "dead authors" to keep her company before the trip, has now adopted the young couples as children. She, once a fussy old woman, has now acquired a softened heart.
    • 4/5
      Two women in London see an advertisement for a month-long rental of a castle in Italy. One of them, Mrs. Wilkins, a woman who never thought she would have the courage to even introduce herself to the other, is so taken by the thought of a month in Italy away from her husband that she approaches the other woman, Mrs. Arbuthnot, and proposes that they answer the ad. They find two other ladies, Lady Caroline and Mrs. Fisher, both strangers, to join them. The rest of the story is summed up by these lines from A Room with a View (the movie, because I can't find this in the book): "A young girl, transfigured by Italy! And why shouldn't she be transfigured? It happened to the Goths!"The four women find lost happiness during their vacation. Mrs. Wilkins attributes this to the beauty of the place; Von Arnim, though, shows us that their happiness comes from the way they begin to treat others. The novel is mainly fluff, and a quick read, but it nonetheless left me with a warm, happy feeling, much as the characters experience in Italy.
    • 4/5
      I loved the movie. The movie sticks pretty close to the book. One of the rare books where I liked the movie a bit better than the book.
    • 4/5
      It started a little slow, but turned into a lovely love story set in a spring-kissed Italian riviera. Appropriately, I read it in April and thus could readily picture and relate to the descriptions of flowers and trees in bloom.
    • 5/5
      The best book I have ever read. The description of the castle and the people made me feel the peace that they found.
    • 5/5
      What a delightful book! I think it's almost perfect in its execution. In The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim introduces us to four women: Lotty Wilkins, Rose Arbuthnot, Mrs. Fisher and Lady Caroline Dester. Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Arbuthnot see an small ad in a paper advertising an Italian castle for rent for the month of April. Quite impetuously, they decide to rent it. In order to defray the costs, they find two other women to share the rent: Mrs. Fisher and Lady Dester. Each woman arrives in Italy with her own private sorrow, but over time the magical atmosphere of the place changes them, allowing each to open her heart and become herself.Von Arnim is a gifted portraitist - the women are so carefully and skillfully drawn that the reader feels as if she knows them. And she handles each transformation so skillfully that you can almost visualize the difference in the women. For some, the ending may be a bit hokey, but I found that it fit. I've read a few reviews that call The Enchanted April "chick lit," and I've been thinking about it. Personally, I think The Enchanted April is as much chick lit as Pride and Prejudice - which is to say, not really. Of course, the genre (if you will) didn't really exist until sometime in the 1980s or so, and it is meant to classify specific forms and themes. The Enchanted April may incorporate that form and those themes, but it did so about sixty years earlier. A precursor, perhaps, but no more than that. In my mind, this is a book that - yes - focuses on women and explores the theme of transformation, but that it does it so well, so tightly and in such a well-observed way, that The Enchanted April rises above being boxed into a strict category.In any case, I loved this book. Elizabeth von Arnim has crafted a tightly crafted, beautiful novel about what is possible when you open your heart to others.
    • 5/5
      On a regular old February afternoon, Mrs. Wilkins chances across an advertisement for a house to let in Italy for the month of April. Such a trip would, of course, be extravagant, but she can't seem to get the ad out of her mind. Then, she sees Mrs. Arbuthnot perusing the same advertisement. These two women, who up until now have never spoken, hit upon a plan: find two others to join them on this selfish trip and split the cost accordingly. Just imagine all the good this holiday could do them...This delightful tale introduces the reader to four women - Lotty Wilkins, Rose Arbuthnot, Mrs. Fisher, and Lady Caroline Dester. All of them have their own private unhappiness, reasons that they have decided to come away and want to be left alone. Their internalized thoughts, dreams, and loneliness make up the majority of the plot, as their stay in San Salvatore works in magic on them. The warm and languid tone of the writing matches their ideal Italian holiday of rest and relaxation, and is infused with humor. A truly enchanting read.
    • 3/5
      The Enchanted April has a lot of the elements of books that I often love: a beautiful setting, charming characters, a meandering story, and a touch of romance. Yet, even with all of that, I finished it and felt a little bit dissatisfied. I couldn't figure out why until I realized that this book is chick lit, and I don't like chick lit. The fact that it was written and set in the 1920s and that is fairly well written initially hid that fact, but when you get right down to it, it's chick lit. Even though it is 85 year old it's got all of the characteristics of modern chick lit:
      • Characters who are stuck in a humdrum life and looking for excitement
      • An unexpected move to a faraway setting
      • Sudden and unbelievable changes of personality
      • Situations that wrap up just a little too neatly and conveniently
      • A happy ending for all without any complications
      I didn't hate it, but I won't read it again. I won't seek out any more of Von Arnim's work, and I won't be recommending this one to other readers.
    • 5/5
      The perfect book to chase away February's gloom. It should be required winter reading. Anyone want to share an Italian villa?
    • 5/5
      Anyone looking out their window on a dull, dreary day can feel the lure of the sun soaked coastline of an Italian castle blooming with wildflowers during the month of April. The four British women, varying in ages and situation are all drawn to San Salvatore, Italy and immediately begin to change. I loved how they all opened their hearts to love and friendship by recognizing the emptiness of their lives. It's not just the sun and rest though that brought about the changes...I believe it was true friendship with extraordinary people.
    • 4/5
      A charming fairy tale which is a delight to read. Underneath its simple exterior, however, there lies an interesting exploration of the importance of beauty and being seen, and how much of who we are is determined by where we are, and how we respond to others.
    • 3/5
      I read this primarily for a challenge for which I needed a book with a month in the title. It was a good and interesting book, but too slow-paced for what I am in the mood for at the moment. I saw that there is a movie based off it and I actually think this book would be very enjoyable as a movie so I may try to check that out.
    • 3/5
      I was so excited to read this, hearing nothing but positive and glowing reviews. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I found this so insipid and fluffy. Each and every character thoroughly annoyed me at some point (and several at most points). I kept reading because everyone seemed to find the ending particularly enjoyable, but by the time I reached it, I was just thankful it was over. It was a very sweet, very light, not particularly interesting book. The most compelling passages were describing the scenery, which I usually skim. I think this needed just a little more edge, which if you know me at all, is saying something.
    • 4/5
      "To Those Who Appreciate Wisteria and Sunshine" - how enticing can an advertisement be than to lore you in with the thought of flowers and sunshine? So four unrelated ladies decide to rent an Italian castle for 4 weeks to escape from their everyday lives. Four ladies so uniquely different - Lottie is a demoraliized house wife who decides that this is what she wants to do with her nest egg. Having met Rose Arbuthnot, who is of like mind, they advertise for two additiinal ladies to share the cost of the rental and head off to Italy for the month of April. Each lady has her own reason for avoiding their normal home environment, and friendships are formed as well as lives repaired amid the flourishing gardens and idyllic setting. The writing brings a sense of peace to the reader as we picture the buzzing bees, blazing flora, and the puffing floating clouds on the hill overlooking the Mediterranean. There are also moments of amusement as well as self-analysis.A great beach read IMHO.
    • 5/5
      I LOVE this book! It is such a gentle, kind, romantic story about women finding themselves, finding beauty, finding friendship, and finding love. The prose is lovely, and her descriptions are vivid and lively. She made me wish I was there with these women, to feel their longing and watch their desires unfold into reality, although not always as they may have expected. Read this! No violence or horror or people doing terrible things to each other, but also not so naive or unrealistic that you can't believe things could turn out this way. It's a hopeful book. :o)
    • 4/5
      The third or fourth time I've read this, it's just a lovely sentimental read with plenty of beautiful scenic descriptions of Italy. The BBC film version (My initial introduction to this title)is very good and has an excellent cast.
    • 5/5
      Simply delightful! Von Arnim does a good job describing the different (vastly different!) characters and the dynamics between them. The book has both sharp wit, and a mellow, dream-like quality, which makes one sigh with the desire to sit by a small Italian castello in the springtime sunshine under the blooming wistaria...

    Book preview

    The Enchanted April - Elizabeth Von Arnim

    XXII

    I

    IT began in a woman’s club in London on a February afternoon,—an uncomfortable club, and a miserable afternoon—when Mrs. Wilkins, who had come down from Hampstead to shop and had lunched at her club, took up The Times from the table in the smoking-room, and running her listless eye down the Agony Column saw this:

    To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine. Small mediaeval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be Let Furnished for the month of April. Necessary servants remain. Z, Box 1000, The Times.

    That was its conception; yet, as in the case of many another, the conceiver was unaware of it at the moment.

    So entirely unaware was Mrs. Wilkins that her April for that year had then and there been settled for her that she dropped the newspaper with a gesture that was both irritated and resigned, and went over to the window and stared drearily out at the dripping street.

    Not for her were mediaeval castles, even those that are specially described as small. Not for her the shores in April of the Mediterranean, and the wistaria and sunshine. Such delights were only for the rich. Yet the advertisement had been addressed to persons who appreciate these things, so that it had been, anyhow, addressed too to her, for she certainly appreciated them; more than anybody knew; more than she had ever told. But she was poor. In the whole world she possessed of her very own only ninety pounds, saved from year to year, put by carefully pound by pound, out of her dress allowance. She had scraped this sum together at the suggestion of her husband as a shield and refuge against a rainy day. Her dress allowance, given her by her father, was £100 a year, so that Mrs. Wilkins’s clothes were what her husband, urging her to save, called modest and becoming, and her acquaintance to each other, when they spoke of her at all, which was seldom for she was very negligible, called a perfect sight.

    Mr. Wilkins, a solicitor, encouraged thrift, except that branch of it which got into his food. He did not call that thrift, he called it bad housekeeping. But for the thrift which, like moth, penetrated into Mrs. Wilkins’s clothes and spoilt them, he had much praise. ‘You never know,’ he said, ‘when there will be a rainy day, and you may be very glad to find you have a nest-egg. Indeed we both may.’

    Looking out of the club window into Shaftesbury Avenue—hers was an economical club, but convenient for Hampstead, where she lived, and for Shoolbred’s, where she shopped,—Mrs. Wilkins, having stood there some time very drearily, her mind’s eye on the Mediterranean in April, and the wistaria, and the enviable opportunities of the rich, while her bodily eye watched the really extremely horrible sooty rain falling steadily on the hurrying umbrellas and splashing omnibuses, suddenly wondered whether perhaps this was not the rainy day Mellersh—Mellersh was Mr. Wilkins—had so often encouraged her to prepare for, and whether to get out of such a climate and into the small mediaeval castle wasn’t perhaps what Providence had all along intended her to do with her savings. Part of her savings, of course; perhaps quite a small part. The castle, being mediaeval, might also be dilapidated, and dilapidations were surely cheap. She wouldn’t in the least mind a few of them, because you didn’t pay for dilapidations which were already there; on the contrary,—by reducing the price you had to pay they really paid you. But what nonsense to think of it. ...

    She turned away from the window with the same gesture of mingled irritation and resignation with which she had laid down The Times, and crossed the room towards the door with the intention of getting her mackintosh and umbrella and fighting her way into one of the overcrowded omnibuses and going to Shoolbred’s on her way home and buying some soles for Mellersh’s dinner—Mellersh was difficult with fish and liked only soles, except salmon—when she beheld Mrs. Arbuthnot, a woman she knew by sight as also living in Hampstead and belonging to the club, sitting at the table in the middle of the room on which the newspapers and magazines were kept, absorbed, in her turn, in the first page of The Times.

    Mrs. Wilkins had never yet spoken to Mrs. Arbuthnot, who belonged to one of the various church sets, and who analysed, classified, divided and registered the poor; whereas she and Mellersh, when they did go out, went to the parties of impressionist painters, of whom in Hampstead there were many. Mellersh had a sister who had married one of them and lived up on the Heath, and because of this alliance Mrs. Wilkins was drawn into a circle which was highly unnatural to her, and she had learned to dread pictures. She had to say things about them, and she didn’t know what to say. She used to murmur, ‘Marvellous,’ and feel that it was not enough. But nobody minded. Nobody listened. Nobody took any notice of Mrs. Wilkins. She was the kind of person who is not noticed at parties. Her clothes, infested by thrift, made her practically invisible; her face was non-arresting; her conversation was reluctant; she was shy. And if one’s clothes and face and conversation are all negligible, thought Mrs. Wilkins, who recognised her disabilities, what, at parties, is there left of one?

    Also she was always with Wilkins, that clean-shaven, fine-looking man, who gave a party, merely by coming to it, a great air. Wilkins was very respectable. He was known to be highly thought of by his senior partners. His sister’s circle admired him. He pronounced adequately intelligent judgments on art and artists. He was pithy; he was prudent; he never said a word too much, nor, on the other hand, did he ever say a word too little. He produced the impression of keeping copies of everything he said; and he was so obviously reliable that it often happened that people who met him at these parties became discontented with their own solicitors, and after a period of restlessness extricated themselves and went to Wilkins.

    Naturally Mrs. Wilkins was blotted out. ‘She,’ said his sister, with something herself of the judicial, the digested, and the final in her manner, ‘should stay at home.’ But Wilkins could not leave his wife at home. He was a family solicitor, and all such have wives and show them. With his in the week he went to parties, and with his on Sundays he went to church. Being still fairly young—he was thirty-nine—and ambitious of old ladies, of whom he had not yet acquired in his practice a sufficient number, he could not afford to miss church, and it was there that Mrs. Wilkins became familiar, though never through words, with Mrs. Arbuthnot.

    She saw her marshalling the children of the poor into pews. She would come in at the head of the procession from the Sunday School exactly five minutes before the choir, and get her boys and girls neatly fitted into their allotted seats, and down on their little knees in their preliminary prayer, and up again on their feet just as, to the swelling organ, the vestry door opened, and the choir and clergy, big with the litanies and commandments they were presently to roll out, emerged. She had a sad face, yet she was evidently efficient. The combination used to make Mrs. Wilkins wonder, for she had been told by Mellersh, on days when she had only been able to get plaice, that if one were efficient one wouldn’t be depressed, and that if one does one’s job well one becomes automatically bright and brisk.

    About Mrs. Arbuthnot there was nothing bright and brisk, though much in her way with the Sunday School children that was automatic; but when Mrs. Wilkins, turning from the window, caught sight of her in the club she was not being automatic at all, but was looking fixedly at one portion of the first page of The Times, holding the paper quite still, her eyes not moving. She was just staring; and her face, as usual, was the face of a patient and disappointed Madonna.

    Obeying an impulse she wondered at even while obeying it, Mrs. Wilkins, the shy and the reluctant, instead of proceeding as she had intended to the cloakroom and from thence to Shoolbred’s in search of Mellersh’s fish, stopped at the table and sat down exactly opposite Mrs. Arbuthnot, to whom she had never yet spoken in her life.

    It was one of those long, narrow refectory tables, so that they were quite close to each other.

    Mrs. Arbuthnot, however, did not look up. She continued to gaze, with eyes that seemed to be dreaming, at one spot only of The Times.

    Mrs. Wilkins watched her a minute, trying to screw up courage to speak to her. She wanted to ask her if she had seen the advertisement. She did not know why she wanted to ask her this, but she wanted to. How stupid not to be able to speak to her. She looked so kind. She looked so unhappy. Why couldn’t two unhappy people refresh each other on their way through this dusty business of life by a little talk,—real, natural talk, about what they felt, what they would have liked, what they still tried to hope? And she could not help thinking that Mrs. Arbuthnot, too, was reading that very same advertisement. Her eyes were on the very part of the paper. Was she, too, picturing what it would be like,—the colour, the fragrance, the light, the soft lapping of the sea among little hot rocks? Colour, fragrance, light, sea; instead of Shaftesbury Avenue, and the wet omnibuses, and the fish department at Shoolbred’s, and the Tube to Hampstead, and dinner, and to-morrow the same and the day after the same and always the same. . . .

    Suddenly Mrs. Wilkins found herself leaning across the table. ‘Are you reading about the mediaeval castle and the wistaria?’ she heard herself asking.

    Naturally Mrs. Arbuthnot was surprised; but she was not half so much surprised as Mrs. Wilkins was at herself for asking.

    Mrs. Arbuthnot had not yet to her knowledge set eyes on the shabby, lank, loosely-put-together figure sitting opposite her, with its small freckled face and big grey eyes almost disappearing under a smashed-down wet-weather hat, and she gazed at her a moment without answering. She was reading about the mediaeval castle and the wistaria, or rather had read about it ten minutes before, and since then had been lost in dreams,—of light, of colour, of fragrance, of the soft lapping of the sea among little hot rocks. . . .

    ‘Why do you ask me that?’ she said in her grave voice, for her training of and by the poor had made her grave and patient.

    Mrs. Wilkins flushed and looked excessively shy and frightened. ‘Oh, only because I saw it too, and I thought perhaps—I thought somehow—’s she stammered.

    Whereupon Mrs. Arbuthnot, her mind being used to getting people into lists and divisions, from habit considered, as she gazed thoughtfully at Mrs. Wilkins, under what heading, supposing she had to classify her, she could most properly be put.

    ‘And I know you by sight,’ went on Mrs. Wilkins, who, like all the shy, once she was started plunged on, frightening herself to more and more speech by the sheer sound of what she had said last in her ears. ‘Every Sunday—I see you every Sunday in church—’

    ‘In church?’ echoed Mrs. Arbuthnot.

    ‘And this seems such a wonderful thing—this advertisement about the wistaria—and—’

    Mrs. Wilkins, who must have been at least thirty, broke off and wriggled in her chair with the movement of an awkward and embarrassed schoolgirl.

    ‘It seems so wonderful,’ she went on in a kind of burst, ‘and—it is such a miserable day. . . .’

    And then she sat looking at Mrs. Arbuthnot with the eyes of an imprisoned dog.

    ‘This poor thing,’ thought Mrs. Arbuthnot, whose life was spent in helping and alleviating, ‘needs advice.’

    She accordingly prepared herself patiently to give it.

    ‘If you see me in church,’ she said, kindly and attentively, ‘I suppose you live in Hampstead too?’

    ‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs. Wilkins. And she repeated, her head on its long thin neck drooping a little as if the recollection of Hampstead bowed her, ‘Oh yes.’

    ‘Where?’ asked Mrs. Arbuthnot, who, when advice was needed, naturally first proceeded to collect the facts.

    But Mrs. Wilkins, laying her hand softly and caressingly on the part of The Times where the advertisement was, as though the mere printed words of it were precious, only said, ‘Perhaps that’s why this seems so wonderful.’

    ‘No—I think that’s wonderful anyhow,’ said Mrs. Arbuthnot, forgetting facts and faintly sighing.

    ‘Then you were reading it?’

    ‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Arbuthnot, her eyes going dreamy again.

    ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful?’ murmured Mrs. Wilkins.

    ‘Wonderful,’ said Mrs. Arbuthnot. Her face, which had lit up, faded into patience again. ‘Very wonderful,’ she said. ‘But it’s no use wasting one’s time thinking of such things.’

    ‘Oh, but it is,’ was Mrs. Wilkins’s quick, surprising reply; surprising because it was so much unlike the rest of her, — the characterless coat and skirt, the crumpled hat, the undecided wisp of hair straggling out. ‘And just the considering of them is worth while in itself—such a change from Hampstead—and sometimes I believe—I really do believe—if one considers hard enough one gets things.’

    Mrs. Arbuthnot observed her patiently. In what category would she, supposing she had to, put her?

    ‘Perhaps,’ she said, leaning forward a little, ‘you will tell me your name. If we are to be friends’—she smiled her grave smile—’as I hope we are, we had better begin at the beginning.’

    ‘Oh yes—how kind of you. I’m Mrs. Wilkins,’ said Mrs. Wilkins. ‘I don’t expect,’ she added, flushing, as Mrs. Arbuthnot said nothing, ‘that it conveys anything to you. Sometimes it—it doesn’t seem to convey anything to me either. But’—she looked round with a movement of seeking help—‘I am Mrs. Wilkins.’

    She did not like her name. It was a mean, small name, with a kind of facetious twist, she thought, about its end like the upward curve of a pugdog’s tail. There it was, however. There was no doing anything with it. Wilkins she was and Wilkins she would remain; and though her husband encouraged her to give it on all occasions as Mrs. Mellersh-Wilkins she only did that when he was within earshot, for she thought Mellersh made Wilkins worse, emphasising it in the way Chats-worth on the gate-posts of a villa emphasises the villa.

    When first he suggested she should add Mellersh she had objected for the above reason, and after a pause,—Mellersh was much too prudent to speak except after a pause, during which presumably he was taking a careful mental copy of his coming observation—he said, much displeased, ‘But I am not a villa,’ and looked at her as he looks who hopes, for perhaps the hundredth time, that he may not have married a fool.

    Of course he was not a villa, Mrs. Wilkins assured him; she had never supposed he was; she had not dreamed of meaning . . . she was only just thinking. . . .

    The more she explained the more earnest became Mellersh’s hope, familiar to him by this time, for he had then been a husband for two years, that he might not by any chance have married a fool; and they had a prolonged quarrel, if that can be called a quarrel which is conducted with dignified silence on one side and earnest apology on the other, as to whether or no Mrs. Wilkins had intended to suggest that Mr. Wilkins was a villa.

    ‘I believe,’ she had thought when it was at last over —it took a long while—’that anybody would quarrel about anything when they’ve not left off being together for a single day for two whole years. What we both need is a holiday.’

    ‘My husband,’ went on Mrs. Wilkins to Mrs. Arbuthnot, trying to throw some light on herself, ‘is a solicitor. He——’ She cast about for something she could say elucidatory of Mellersh, and found: ‘He’s very handsome.’

    ‘Well,’ said Mrs. Arbuthnot kindly, ‘that must be a great pleasure to you.’

    ‘Why?’ asked Mrs. Wilkins.

    ‘Because,’ said Mrs. Arbuthnot, a little taken aback, for constant intercourse with the poor had accustomed her to have her pronouncements accepted without question, ‘because beauty—handsomeness—is a gift like any other, and if it is properly used——’

    She trailed off into silence. Mrs. Wilkins’s great grey eyes were fixed on her, and it seemed suddenly to Mrs. Arbuthnot that perhaps she was becoming crystallised into a habit of exposition, and of exposition after the manner of nursemaids, through having an audience that couldn’t but agree, that would be afraid, if it wished, to interrupt, that didn’t know, that was, in fact, at her mercy.

    But Mrs. Wilkins was not listening; for just then, absurd as it seemed, a picture had flashed across her brain, and there were two figures in it sitting together under a great trailing wistaria that stretched across the branches of a tree she didn’t know, and it was herself and Mrs. Arbuthnot—she saw them—she saw them. And behind them, bright in sunshine, were old grey walls—the mediaeval castle—she saw it—they were there. . . .

    She therefore stared at Mrs. Arbuthnot and did not hear a word she said. And Mrs. Arbuthnot stared too at Mrs. Wilkins, arrested by the expression on her face, which was swept by the excitement of what she saw, and was as luminous and tremulous under it as water in sunlight when it is ruffled by a gust of wind. At this moment, if she had been at a party, Mrs. Wilkins would have been looked at with interest.

    They stared at each other; Mrs. Arbuthnot surprised, inquiringly, Mrs. Wilkins with the eyes of some one who has had a revelation. Of course. That was how it could be done. She herself, she by herself, couldn’t afford it, and wouldn’t be able, even if she could afford it, to go there all alone; but she and Mrs. Arbuthnot together. . . .

    She leaned across the table. ‘Why don’t we try and get it?’ she whispered.

    Mrs. Arbuthnot became even more wide-eyed. ‘Get it?’ she repeated.

    ‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Wilkins, still as though she were afraid of being overheard. ‘Not just sit here and say How wonderful, and then go home to Hampstead without having put out a finger—go home just as usual and see about the dinner and the fish just as we’ve been doing for years and years and will go on doing for years and years. In fact,’ said Mrs. Wilkins, flushing to the roots of her hair, for the sound of what she was saying, of what was coming pouring out, frightened her, and yet she couldn’t stop, ‘I see no end to it. There is no end to it. So that there ought to be a break, there ought to be intervals—in everybody’s interests. Why, it would really be being unselfish to go away and be happy for a little, because we would come back so much nicer. You see, after a bit everybody needs a holiday.’

    ‘But—how do you mean, get it?’ asked Mrs. Arbuthnot.

    ‘Take it,’ said Mrs. Wilkins.

    ‘Take it?’

    ‘Rent it. Hire it. Have it.’

    ‘But—do you mean you and I?’

    ‘Yes. Between us. Share. Then it would only cost half, and you look so—you look exactly as if you wanted it just as much as I do—as if you ought to have a rest—have something happy happen to you.’

    ‘Why, but we don’t know each other.’

    ‘But just think how well we would if we went away together for a month! And I’ve saved for a rainy day, and I expect so have you, and this is the rainy day—look at it——’

    ‘She is unbalanced,’ thought Mrs. Arbuthnot; yet she felt strangely stirred.

    ‘Think of getting away for a whole month—from everything—to heaven——’

    ‘She shouldn’t say things like that,’ thought Mrs. Arbuthnot. ‘The vicar——’ Yet she felt strangely stirred. It would indeed be wonderful to have a rest, a cessation.

    Habit, however, steadied her again; and years of intercourse with the poor made her say, with the slight though sympathetic superiority of the explainer, ‘But then, you see, heaven isn’t somewhere else. It is here and now. We are told so.’

    She became very earnest, just as she did when trying patiently to help and enlighten the poor. ‘Heaven is within us,’ she said in her gentle low voice. ‘We are told that on the very highest authority. And you know the lines about the kindred points, don’t you——’

    ‘Oh yes, I know them,’ interrupted Mrs. Wilkins impatiently.

    ‘The kindred points of heaven and home,’ continued Mrs. Arbuthnot, who was used to finishing her sentences. ‘Heaven is in our home.’

    ‘It isn’t,’ said Mrs. Wilkins, again surprisingly.

    Mrs. Arbuthnot was taken aback. Then she said gently, ‘Oh, but it is. It is there if we choose, if we make it.’

    ‘I do choose, and I do make it, and it isn’t,’ said Mrs. Wilkins.

    Then Mrs. Arbuthnot was silent, for she too sometimes had doubts about homes. She sat and looked uneasily at Mrs. Wilkins, feeling more and more the urgent need of getting her classified. If she could only classify Mrs. Wilkins, get her safely under her proper heading, she felt that she herself would regain her balance, which did seem very strangely to be slipping all to one side. For neither had she had a holiday for years, and the advertisement when she saw it had set her dreaming, and Mrs. Wilkins’s excitement about it was infectious, and she had the sensation, as she listened to her impetuous, odd talk and watched her lit-up face, that she was being stirred out of sleep.

    Clearly Mrs. Wilkins was unbalanced, but Mrs. Arbuthnot had met the unbalanced before—indeed she was always meeting them—and they had no effect on her own stability at all; whereas this one was making her feel quite wobbly, quite as though to be off and away, away from her compass points of God, Husband, Home and Duty—she didn’t feel as if Mrs. Wilkins intended Mr. Wilkins to come too—and just for once be happy, would be both good and desirable. Which of course it wasn’t; which certainly of course it wasn’t. She, also, had a nest-egg, invested gradually in the Post Office Savings Bank, but to suppose that she would ever forget her duty to the extent of drawing it out and spending it on herself was surely absurd. Surely she couldn’t, she wouldn’t ever do such a thing? Surely she wouldn’t, she couldn’t ever forget her poor, forget misery and sickness as completely as that? No doubt a trip to Italy would be extraordinarily delightful, but there were many delightful things one would like to do, and what was strength given to one for except to help one not to do them?

    Steadfast as the points of the compass to Mrs. Arbuthnot were the great four facts of life: God, Husband, Home, Duty. She had gone to sleep on these facts years ago,

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